The DCEU Discussion – Part IV - Episode 1: Twisted Plotlines in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
- Luke Evans
- Jan 9, 2021
- 23 min read
Updated: Jul 5, 2021
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice... sigh... hey, how come they didn't realise at the title that this thing was too long and unwieldy... it's a metaphor for the whole fi... Anyway...
This post was so long, I've split it into three sections... plus the Lex Luthor post... and it's still too long... but I can't stop writing.
Initially, I wanted to be fair. I thought I'd go back and maybe I was always too harsh about this movie... But I wasn't... was I???
- Pic: From TheGuardian.com
Warning: SPOILER heavy article to follow!!!
Back when this monstrosity came out in 2016, I was super keen for it. I waited and waited. I loved the Superman/Batman comics that were out well before in 2003 and the cartoon versions of this that followed: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009) and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010). I had loved the World's Finest duo since the 1980's when I first saw Super Friends or when I picked up my earliest comics.
It is fair to say that I had waited a long time to see this movie.
And so I did.
And I was so disappointed.
That's it...
That's my review...
You can all stop reading and go home...
...
...
... Okay...
I have more to say. But if you have read the bit above or any of the other articles, I think you know where I'm heading.
A few things before I start - Because of how much I had to say, I have removed my discussion of this film's Lex Luthor to a separate article titled: The DCEU Discussion – Part II: Lex Luthor and you can find it where you found this. I'll touch on it here, but the bulk of what I will say about that character will be over there.
Next - for years I had only seen the theatrical release of this infuriating movie. In the interests of rewatching it and trying to be fair and balanced in my review, I have bought and watched the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition.
For the record, that means I have bought this film twice and watched it at least twice at the movies, so they got their money out of me. When you ask, "Was this movie successful?", well... Yes, it was. It made (and continues to make) sooooooo much money.
And then you might ask, "Does that make it a good movie?"
And I will tell you, "No. It does not."
I will say this. I noticed on the Wikipedia page that there was an article quoted from Ben Kendrick of Screen Rant who had stated that:
...while it was more "intelligible", character portrayal was not "fundamentally changed" and "for viewers who didn't like Man of Steel or Batman v Superman for larger reasons, such as tone, approach, and the darker characterization of DC's most iconic heroes, the Ultimate Edition is only a longer... version of a film that... is likely to remain divisive, even if the final product is a better film."
- From the Wikipedia page for the film. The original article is on the Screen Rant page found here and is well worth a read. Ben covers many of the same things I'll touch on.
I agree with this completely. It is a better version of the film, it does make the original version seem somehow even worse... and it doesn't solve this movie's problems at all. As I said, if you want my idea for a revised version that might've worked, go to The DCEU Discussion – Part IV - Episode 3: Wrapping-Up. Overall, I did enjoy the Ultimate Version far more than the original... but it's still frustratingly stupid, over-packed with an unnecessarily complicated story, and it tries to do too much - even more than the original cut. If Marvel taught us anything it was to go slowly and to tease the audience, not dump everything you have at once.
For an unpopular example... I think that Wonder Woman should not have been in this movie... Or at least, she should not have appeared in her armour. The Diana scenes are fine. Now, the Wonder Woman scenes are awesome, but they should've put it in another movie.
There should have been no Darkseid/Steppenwolf subplot, no batshit crazy Luthor scenes, no "Martha" nonsense, no Bat-dreams, no Doomsday... Take all that shit out and you still have a full movie... I promise... AND enough left over for a sequel.
Let's get into it...
My Film Review of BvS: The Ultimate Edition
(I refuse to write the full title again...)
-Pic: From TheVerge.com
We open with a montage of the Wayne’s funeral, with flashbacks to the death scene. We see Jeremy Irons as Alfred for the first time with that great voice. Jeremy Irons is an awesome Alfred, by the way. It's a shame he had to be awesome in a movie that can't be saved. Ben Affleck as well...
Anyway...
Young Bruce falls into the cave full of bats. We've seen this before. And then we see something new. Suddenly, he rises up from the ground and into the air. He flies up with the bats and out of the cave... and we hear from the adult Bruce's narration that it’s a dream.
To divert again, this Batman has a lot of unexplained dreams. Now, I know Bruce Wayne is always a bit psychotic, but these dreams...
Moving on again...
Then we cut to a scene of Bruce Wayne in Metropolis. It turns out this is a different point of view of the Battle of Metropolis from Man of Steel, when Zod and Superman are fighting in the climactic scene from that film. Bruce tries to get the Wayne Financial building in Metropolis so that he can get the employees to evacuate their building, but the building comes down in the fight. I loved this scene at the movies and I loved seeing Bruce Wayne as the hero, in the street – not as Batman. Bruce saves a man that worked for him named Wallace Keefe and one of the little kids on the street. He asks the little girl where her Mum is and she points up to the destroyed Wayne Financial building. Bruce looks up in the sky and sees Superman and Zod. He hugs the child tightly and glares at the aliens battling above. I loved this scene so much! It gave me a reason for Batman’s hatred!
So, already, I’m led to ask - Why didn’t they just run with that? That was enough of a reason for the fight! Go deeper into how that made him feel, get him to confront Superman with it, to talk about the people who died. So many options!
Next, there’s the scene of some people salvaging Kryptonite from the downed World Engine in the Indian Ocean - from where it fell in Man of Steel. We are not told who they are working for, but it's Lex Luthor.
Moving fast, to fit it all in, they jump to a desert scene in the fictional African nation of Nairomi, where Lois Lane and photographer Jimmy Olsen are meeting with a terrorist General... and we find out that Jimmy Olsen is a spy!! Er... briefly, before he dies. There’s a double twist I didn’t see coming. This is not the Super Friends...
As expected, after lots of people have died, Clark comes in the save the day... or at least Lois. Yes... he only really saves Lois... The terrorist General holds Lois around the neck. Lois and Clark share a look and Lois lets the man go, presumably so that Clark can take him out without hurting her. Superman takes the terrorist and flies him straight through a wall.
He was still holding Lois around the head – sooooo... why didn’t her head go with them? Super-speed arm removal first? Anyway…
Hey… Did Superman kill that guy?? Either way, we do not see him again...
Regardless... some of the baddies who we find out later were working for Lex, kill and burn a bunch of the terrorists before Supes arrives – in an effort to set Superman up for their deaths at a hearing in the US. Locals report that Superman flew in and was responsible for the deaths. Anatoli Knyazev is their leader – a character who is known in the comics as the KGBeast. He uses a flamethrower and he’s Russian. And he's played by an Australian, but that's neither here nor there...
The next scene shows us Police in Gotham City sloooooowly responding to a call reporting a crime. We see them finding a bunch of women in a cage in the basement of a building. They refuse to come out, because they indicate that someone is still in the building. It’s Batman and one of the remaining criminals. Batman brands the criminal with a hot Batarang-shaped device – whaaaaaaaaat??? – and ties him to a radiator!! Are you serious, what is going on here?!?!
One of the cops shoots at Batman and he escapes the room. A second cop enters the room and the first one nearly accidentally blows his head off with a shotgun.
So... Not the Super Friends' Batman, then. Okay. Got it.
Batman, for the record, should have two immutable rules: No killing and no handguns...
(I say handguns, because every version of the Batmobile, Batplane, Batwing etc is armed to the teeth with guns and missiles... but anyway... No HANDguns).
... and this Batman does not give a shit about those rules.
Why? They never bother to tell us. It would've been so easy to go into, instead of some of the other crap they wasted our time with.
Next scene... erm... Lois in a bathtub… why? (I need to stop asking that question). Clark comes in. They have a discussion about the costs of Clark always saving her and the cost of his intervening on her behalf. She questions whether they can be together when he needs to be Superman for everyone, not just her. He does not agree and thinks they can be together. He joins her in the bath… not sure why we needed that, either…
Bruce comes down into the Batcave and has a discussion with Alfred… Bruce is living in a little riverside apartment on the surface - but underneath it has an elaborate Batcave setup. We are shown later that Wayne Manor is in ruins, although we are not told why. Again, this Bruce is darker and has a lot of history and pain under his belt. Bruce does not seem particularly dark in this scene though. He and Alfred jump straight into a conversation that's like a real conversation - there's no exposition for the audience as to what they are talking about. We hear that, apparently, Batman was looking into something called the White Portuguese. I thought I was missing something, but this conversation is difficult to follow. Somehow, Batman has found out about Anatoli Knyazev and is after him for information about someone called "The White Portuguese" who is possibly smuggling a dirty bomb into Gotham (although this turns out to be false later).
Alfred shows Bruce a newspaper with the branded criminal, and says:
Alfred: New rules? Bruce: We're criminals, Alfred. We've always been criminals. Nothings changed. Alfred: Oh. Yes it has, sir. Everything's changed. Alfred puts up some footage of Superman, some of Zod. Alfred: Men fall from the sky. The gods hurl thungerbolts. Innocence die. That's how it starts. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness... that turns good men... cruel.
-You can watch it on YouTube here: Batman v Superman - Bruce and Alfred first scene
And then, he walks off. Now, this is a parental admonition and it's well done, but that is the time that they should have went deeper, with something like: "What is happening to you? You're hurting people unnecessarily, you're sometimes killing them, what has turned you into this thing you have become? Remember your rules, the rules you made when we started this crusade?"... Or something like that... Then, Batman responds with the pain that he has gone through, particularly with Robin's violent death at the Joker's hands and how that has changed him.... So easy to justify his darkness, and then I would be fine... But no. They never really bother to go into it.
Okay... from here on in I'm going to draw storylines together, not necessarily in the order they happen in the film - because it's too confusing to do it all in order... I wish they knew that before they released it!!
Lex Luthor
Next, we meet this film’s insane version of Lex Luthor… yep… Needless to say, I do not like this version. To be 100% fair, this Lex is actually Alexander Luthor Jr and in the film he says that his father was the "Lex" in "Lexcorp". Alexander Luthor Jr is a different character, son to the bald Lex we are all so familiar with. While starting out as a hero, Lex Jr does also become a villain in the comics.
My favourite Lex's are shown in The DCEU Discussion - Part II: Lex Luthor article, as mentioned before. To summarize the Part II article - Lex needs more depth than the eccentric Mad Scientist for me. I have heard others compare this version to a mix between the Riddler and the Joker... Neither of which are characters that should be comparable to Lex. He can be insane, but his madness should be rage and a lack of caring for the consequences of what he does and who he hurts. Not the comical, over-the-top craziness we see here.
So, this version of Lex is our big bad guy, obviously. This version is ridiculously crazy, a decision that I still don’t understand. It does nothing to further the story of the character and it’s just annoying, really. Lex is shown to be the eccentric CEO of LexCorp, a company started by his father – who appears to have been at least physically abusive to Lex in his childhood. It’s alluded to that Lex has great angst for his deceased father and that in some ways he is responsible for why Lex is the way he is... as all parents are, I guess.
Lex meets with two politicians – Senator June Finch and Senator Barrows. Senator Finch is heading the investigation into Superman and Lex appears to think she might be his ally to start with. However, the Senator appears to be quite professionally impartial in her dealings and does not yet see Superman as a threat. She is investigating him and will make that decision when all the info is in. In news clips later on in the film, the Senator says Superman should not be stopped from helping people, but should not be allowed to act unilaterally. That’s what she wants – democratic oversight.
Lex wants them to approve a license for him to transport Kryptonite into Metropolis. Lex’s scientists had used small samples of Kryptonite to test the effects on General Zod’s dead body and found that it could cut him and cause damage to Kryptonian cells even in death. He says that he wants to use it to make weapons that protect against future Kryptonian attacks. Senator Finch points out that only Superman is left. Lex acknowledges this, but says there’s more of them out there and they need to be ready. The Senator sees through his plans, noting that he is taking a weapon to kill Superman and calling it a Kryptonian deterrent instead and that she is not buying it:
Sen. Finch: You can call me whatever you like. Take a bucket of piss and call it "Granny's Peach Tea". Take a weapon of assassination and call it deterrence. You won't fool a fly on me. I'm not gonna drink it.
Yes! I love it. She's a really good character, actually. She's fair but firm, and she actually just wants justice. She blocks the requested license for the Kryptonite importation.
- You can watch this here: Senator June Finch blocks Lex Luthor's Import License Scene - Batman v Superman
Another cool quote from there:
Lex: Hey, you don't think dad would mind, do you? If I change just... just one thing in this room? Lex indicates the painting of The Fall of the dark angels from Heaven. It has the angels at the top and the demons at the bottom. Lex: Because, that should be upside down. Now, we know better now, don't we? The devils don't come from Hell beneath us. No. No, they come from the sky.
Of the two senators, Senator Barrows, on the other hand, is open to dealing with Lex. He grants Lex access to the downed Kryptonian scout ship from Man of Steel, along with the body of General Zod.
The hearings continue and Senator Finch puts out a plea for Superman to appear before them to give the committee his side of the story.
Anyway, Lex’s big plan is to turn Batman and Superman against each other publicly, something that is shown to be ridiculously easy. Clark starts reading all of the articles about Batman branding people and then those people showing up dead in prison. That's enough to sour him on Batman. Bruce, as noted, watched Zod and Superman go at each other through Metropolis. The results of this fight were a lot of deaths and – yes – this is partly on Superman’s shoulders. I’m not sure he could have prevented it, but perhaps he could’ve done more to minimise the damage of their fight or move it out of the city... maybe not. Since it was clearly not something the filmmakers were interested in, that didn’t happen. I think they wanted to show just how powerful these two were and that a true fight between them in a city was going to cause widescale destruction, unlike all the versions we have seen before. Regardless of the reasons it happened the way it did, they had an alien smackdown in a city, destroyed a lot of property, and were responsible for many deaths. Bruce lost people in the destruction - so he is rightfully angry.
But does he ever try to talk to Superman about it?
No…
No, he does not.
Sigh... It's all about communicating, people. Remember that. Take this lesson to heart. Before you go on a murderous rampage against a total stranger, go and see if they'll have a chat first. Get a coffee and listen to each other... you'd be surprised how effective that might be...
Anyway... after the Thought For The Day...
Kahina Ziri - Lex's tool against Superman
Through news footage, we are introduced to Kahina Ziri – a Nairomian woman living in Gotham who testifies against Superman. (Nairomi is a fictional African country made up for this movie). She was in the Nairomian village in the desert and describes the destruction and death that followed Superman's visit to the village, blaming him for the deaths directly. In this version, there is an extended subplot for Kahina, where she is given more screen time and we find out eventually that she is being paid by Lex to testify against Superman. He wrote her testimony and everything. Ah... an important piece of info left out of the original.
Clark begins to investigate Kahina, looking into who she is and why she is testifying. She disappears for a while after testifying against Superman and Clark goes to her building. The other tenants don’t know where she is. One of the tenants of the building warns Clark to get out of Gotham before night, because the Batman is out there. Another tenant responds by saying that only criminals need to worry about Batman, to which the first replies:
Tenant: There’s a new kind of mean in him. He is angry… and he is hunting.
This is good – it’s an extra scene only in this version, but it’s one of only a few scenes that acknowledge that Batman is acting out of order, in darker ways than normal. They did not make that obvious enough in the main version. He was portrayed as just a darker version of the character. But there's more to it. Even in this world, he is not acting as he always has before.
Later, we see Kahina trying to return home, but as she goes to get off a public bus, she sees Anatoli outside her apartment talking to the tenant who warned Clark about Batman. She stays on the bus and does not go home. Instead, she heads to Washington and confesses to Senator June Finch that Lex is behind her testimony. That's far later in the film.
As a carry on from his visit to Kahina's building - Clark is actually supposed to be working on fluff-pieces on the Friends of the Metropolis Library (Lex's fundraiser) and sports articles for the Daily Planet and gets in trouble from Perry White (The Editor) when he is caught continually investigating Batman. When Clark first reports about crime in Gotham, Perry tells him:
Perry White: (sarcastically) “Crimewave in Gotham. In other breaking news – Water: Wet."
Lois, on the other hand, is allowed to pursue the story she is looking into - which becomes relevant to the main plot too.
When Perry finds out Clark is still looking into it after the scene above, he tells him to drop it, saying:
Perry White: Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman!
- You can watch it here: Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice - Clark and Perry White (2016)
(There's a little reference to 1938 in there. That's the year Superman's first story was printed! Nice pull!)
Wallace Keefe - Lex's tool against Superman
Bruce's employee from the start, Wallace Keefe, is shown to come back and we see that he lost his legs after they were crushed in the destruction of the Wayne Financial building in Metropolis at the start of the film. He leaves his wheelchair and, using only his arms (obviously), he climbs the Superman statue in Metropolis Park. He spray-paints the statue with the words "FALSE GOD" in red paint. Wallace gets arrested. We see him being released from prison as the criminal who was Bat-branded, Cesar Santos, is being brought in. When Wallace gets home, Lex is waiting for him with a new wheelchair and prompts him to go to the Senator in Washington and to ask to testify as a victim of Superman, which he does.
Later on, Wallace tells reporters that he has nothing to his name. Bruce is confused, because he assumed they were looking after Wallace. Bruce finds out that the cheques he was supposed to be receiving had been sent back with scribbled red writing on them, telling him things like : “BRUCE WAYNE, OPEN YOUR EYES”, “Bruce, NO TRUCE”, “B WAYNE, I HAUNT YOU”, “ BRUCE WAYNE = BLIND”, and the last one: "YOU LET YOUR FAMILY DIE", attached to a newspaper clipping of the destroyed Wayne Financial building in Metropolis. We find out much later, though, that it's Lex who appears to be blocking the payments from Wayne Enterprises that were supposed to look after Wallace’s medical expenses and that he is writing on the cheques and sending them back. This appears to be all devised by Lex to get Bruce furious enough to go after Superman. Bruce is building a picture in his head that Superman is the source of all that is wrong in both cities.
Oh – Both cities... Metropolis and Gotham are across the harbour from each other and super close in this world… Why Clark never has an interest in Batman before this when he is so close is not explained.
Cesar Santos - Lex's tool against Batman
To turn Clark against Batman, Lex has been arranging for the murders of every prison inmate who is marked with a Bat-brand. Anatoli arranged the murders for him. The papers and TV news run stories that say that in prison, the Bat-brand means death and so Clark naturally blames Batman. This is fair - this Batman doesn't care about that and keeps branding people anyway. Cesar Santos, the man Batman branded and tied to a radiator at the start of the film, is the latest of 18 reported Bat-branded criminals.
Anatoli visits the prison to arrange for the death of Santos. After he has been killed, Lex sends Clark polaroids of the dead man. They have scribbled red writing on them saying: “JUDGE”, “JURY”, “EXECUTIONER”, “JUSTICE?” Clark investigates this and talks to Santos’ partner. She backs up the story that there is something going on here. Santos was transferred to that prison on purpose and word on the street is that the brand means death in prison. She tells Clark that Batman is out of control.
Lois Lane - Just a tool...
Unbeknownst to Clark, both Lois and Bruce are investigating the same connected story as well. None of them know what angle the other is looking at. Clark never learns about Anatoli at all, despite following the trail laid out for him. He blames Batman. Lois knows it's someone working for LexCorp, but doesn't know who he is. Only Bruce knows Anatoli's name.
As mentioned in the first Perry White bit above, unlike Clark, Lois’ assignments from the Daily Planet are just what she wants to be looking into. As his star reporter, Perry tends to give her what she needs to get her story done. Lois is investigating bullets found in the desert camp. She contacts the General from Man of Steel, General Swanwick, who is now a Cabinet Secretary (Defence? Not sure we are told), and he looks into it for her. Lois says that she feels guilty for the deaths that happened because she went into the desert, but that she knows that Superman wasn’t responsible. General Swanwick finds out the bullets were made by Lexcorp and that LexCorp had agents in the terrorist camp. He tells this to Lois but says that he won’t go public with it, as it’s classified and he likes his job. They realise that Lois being in the desert was bait to draw Superman in to rescue her. Then, whoever is behind it could frame him for the murders.
Now, after finding this out, LOIS DOES NOT TELL CLARK!!
Why?
I don’t know. She has an opportunity to and simply doesn’t. To be fair, he flies off before she can, but she never tells him she has something important to tell him and she sees him later again and doesn't beckon him over.
So… stupid…
I think - in hindsight - that's a piece of info he might like to know.
Whenever I see stupid stuff in Superman shows to do with reporters, it takes me back to the first episode of the sitcom Mad About You where Cousin Ira is watching Lois and Clark on TV and he says "I thought these people were supposed to be reporters!" or something like that.
Anyway, moving on...
Let's talk about Batman for a bit...
In Batman’s investigation of Anatoli, he goes to an underground fighting ring to get close to Anatoli and to clone his phone. During the fight, Bruce whispers some game-changing advice in one of the fighter’s ears and this turned the fight around, helping the underdog to win. That’s a cool scene.
-And you can find it here: Batman v Superman - The Dark Knight & Ballerina's
He clones the phone and uses it to get info on Anatoli and Lex. We'll get to that in a sec.
For some reason that remains unexplained in both versions of this film, throughout Batman’s story, he has visions and dreams. Some seem to be trauma-induced nightmares. Others are visions relating to the future coming of Steppenwolf and Darkseid – covered in more detail in the Justice League film (though never fully explained here, adding to the general air of confusion when this movie tries to do too much all at once).
The first dream is the one at the start, about flying out of the cave with the bats. In the flashbacks to his parents’ deaths, we hear Thomas Wayne whisper that most dreaded word for the first time: “Martha!”
The next dream is when Bruce dreams about a bat-demon busting out of his Mum’s tomb. It’s another reminder that her name is Martha - since it was written on the front of the tomb. Oh my God!!! Later on, there is an elaborate dream sequence relating to the Darkseid thing. We’ll get to it in order.
Next for Batman, after waking from the Bat-Demon-Mum-Tomb nightmare… there’s a scene with Alfred telling Bruce that he is better equipped to get answers from Lex than Batman. Batman went out and only got a little info. It was Bruce Wayne who cloned Anatoli’s phone. The phone implicates Lex as the bad guy… and, conveniently Alfred tells him that Bruce is invited to Lex’s fundraiser at Lexcorp.
- That scene is here: Batman v Superman - Bruce & Alfred # 2 [Extended cut]
Bruce looks at the Batsuit and then decides to go to Lex’s fundraiser as Bruce instead of Batman, based on Alfred’s advice. He passes Robin’s defaced suit and the crowbar which are on display in the cave. The suit is spray-painted with “Hahaha - Joke’s on you, Batman”.
I want to stop here for a moment. This scene could’ve been so much more powerful. This could've been the big reveal as to why Bruce has lost control. They could have spent some time with Bruce and Aflred talking about Robin’s death and how this is the reason that Bruce has gone off the deep end – he is traumatised. All of his darkness, his anger, his cruelty comes from this moment. After 20 years of being Batman, he has been through some shit. But… No. He looks at the Batsuit. He looks at the Robin suit… and he walks out.
An opportunity for character-driven story-telling – lost. From my point of view, Zack Snyder is not very good at this type of story-telling and that’s what this movie needed more of… and a whole lot less of other Snyder-esque action-based story-telling.
Oh... and for some reason, the Wiki page I'm linking you to above says that Zack intended for this robin to be Dick Grayson. In almost every other medium, Jason Todd - the 2nd Robin - is the one who Joker killed. Why make a change like that? It's yet another time where we see that Zack either doesn't know the comics or simply doesn't care.
I read an article about the infamous Kevin Smith's reaction to the theatrical release. It attributed this quote to Kevin:
Kevin Smith: There seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding of what those characters are about. It’s almost like Zack Snyder didn’t read a bunch of comics, he read one comic once, and it was Dark Knight Returns, and his favourite part was the last part where Batman and Superman fight. But … you get to do that in that book because you’ve got three books prior to that and 50 years at that point of comic-book history to build on.”
- From The Guardian.com
I agree. This is absolutely what this feels like.
The Friends of the Metropolis Libraries Fundraiser
Clark and Bruce are both at Lex’s fundraiser. And a mysterious woman… who turns out to be Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman! (Although we don't get to "know" that for a while yet).
Now – from what I can tell, this whole thing is a part of Lex’s set-up of Superman and Batman. Somehow, he knows who they both are, in and out of costume.
A quick touch on that - the whole "secret identity" thing doesn't seem to be a big thing in the DCEU. Apparently, it's easy to work these things out. I agree... it would be hard to keep this sort of secret in the real world. Lex knows them all. Amanda Waller, in the Suicide Squad film, appears to know it all too. Lois works it out before she even meets Clark. They don't really try to protect Clark's identity from Batman. Superman addresses Bruce by name when he's in the Bat-suit... it's never explained how he knows exactly, although he hears Alfred and Bruce talking over their coms device at the fundraiser with his super-hearing. And he can see through stuff... So... that's that. Personally, I would've liked it to be more explicit in the film AND I would've liked to see Bruce react when called by name... Nope. Not here... Anyway... It's probably a realistic way of treating the secret identity thing, so I'm mostly on board.
Back to the party:
Lex invites both Bruce and Clark to the fundraiser and greets them both by name. We find out later that Lex knows who all of the future Justice League members are. He has files on Wonder Woman, Cyborg, The Flash and Aquaman and has assigned their League symbols to them. While he doesn’t seem to have files on Bruce and Clark, it is very clear by the end of this movie that Lex knows who Batman and Superman are. He doesn’t have files on them, because all of the files are put there intentionally for Bruce to find. The whole cloning the phone thing is therefore part of the set-up. They knew Bruce would do something like that and left the info there for him and Diana to find. He wants Bruce to find out about Anatoli and the Kryptonite.
Apparently, Diana was there because Lex was on to her and had the photograph proving she was at least 100 years old. Was that planted to get her in too? If so, they don't explain why...
To summarise the fundraiser, Lex does another crazy speech…. he is so ridiculously nuts... Bruce breaks into Lex’s files. He has to leave a USB drive in a computer to copy everything. He goes and meets Clark and Lex. Clark asks him for a comment on Batman and each of them defends their secret identity without saying “Hey, stop talking about me!”:
Clark Kent: What's your position on the Bat vigilante in Gotham? Bruce Wayne: Daily Planet. Wait, do I own this one? Or was that the other guy? Clark Kent: Civil liberties has been trampled on in your city. Good people living in fear. Bruce Wayne: Don't believe everything you hear, son. Clark Kent: I've seen it, Mr. Wayne. He thinks he's above the law. Bruce Wayne: The Daily Planet criticizing those who think they're above the law is a little hypocritical, wouldn't you say? Considering every time your hero saves a cat out of a tree, you write a puff piece editorial, about an alien who, if he wanted to, could burn the whole place down. There wouldn't be a damn thing we can do to stop him. Clark Kent: Most of the world doesn't share your opinion, Mr. Wayne. Bruce Wayne: Maybe it's the Gotham City in me, we just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns.
Oooh... Them's fighting words!!
There’s a funny knock off of this vid by Jimmy Kimmel:
And it does feel like they intentionally made it that easy for these characters to know who each other is!!!
After the fundraiser, Diana and Bruce meet again. He asks for his drive back and they discuss the info on it. She has only borrowed it and says it’s in his car.
- If you care, you can find that vid here: Batman v Superman - Diana Prince & Bruce Wayne [Extended cut]
After retrieving the drive, Bruce goes back to the cave and ...
... we'll keep talking about this nonsense in The DCEU Discussion – Part IV - Episode 2: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Rules of Fightclub
******
Previous posts for this series:
NOTE: The pictures and videos used here have been sourced from different internet sites, always linked to under the picture. In the case of comic panels, the original issue numbers and creators are listed, as well as the company that owns them. All rights remain with the original creators and have been used here for entertainment and educational purposes only.
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